1. Beginner Bible Course: Why should I read the Bible at all?

EPISODE 1  The simple Bible overview of…WHY SHOULD I READ THE BIBLE AT ALL?

So why should you blow the dust off this big old religious book? The Bible well, let me ask you a question. If a friend told you, you got to hear this new song and you went to iTunes and it was downloaded 2.3 billion times setting an all time record for iTunes. Would you want to listen to the song? Or if somebody sent you a link to a YouTube video and said, you got to see this video and you went to YouTube and it had to 0.3 billion views. Would you watch it today? The Bible has 2.3 billion likes approximately one out of three people walking this planet view of the Bible as something very special, their menu, all of faith and practice, but there's more, first of all, let's talk about its popularity.

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It blows up the New York times best seller list. In fact, 7 billion copies of the Bible have been printed. It's the number one printed book of all time by far. In fact, the number two is at 800 million. It's a book in China. Number three is the Harry Potter series that 400 million, 400 million versus 7 billion that doesn't necessarily make it the word of God as we'll see in future episodes, it claims to be, but it makes it worth Cracking Open it's also very unique in its composition. What other book was written over 1500 years by 40 authors' in different places from wilderness to King's palace in different times from war to peace on three different continents in three different languages.

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And here's the unique part about it. When the Bible speaks non-controversial issues and they're all in there, it speaks with clarity and agreement. That's shocking in my class of students, I can throw out any controversial topic and here our students, same age, same location, same timeframe, generally, same socioeconomic background, and they can't agree on anything. And yet the Bible writers have consistency in their views. It's also unique in its survival. No other book has been sought to be destroyed like the Bible. And for good reason, it is a dangerous book use properly.

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It misses with us used in properly. It can be a terrible weapon, a religious weapon, the worst kind of its unique in its teachings and in how it treats its main characters. Find another book where the heroes are treated so poorly. The Bible describes the characters and it's pages, warts, and all it's also unique in its impact on surrounding literature. One writer has said, if you would destroy every Bible on this planet, you could recreate over 90% of it just from song lyrics and books in your local public library, citations and its influence on other literature.

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Does that make it necessarily the word of God? Not necessarily, but it does make it unique. One of a kind with no light or equal there's no other book like It on this planet anywhere ever. So how did we get this utterly unique book? I hope to answer that in our next wordpicture.